Wednesday, 3 April 2013

Recently Read Part 2

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Recently made into a film (which I've also seen and will be reviewing at a later date), this is a quirky little story about Charlie, a young teenage boy struggling to cope with the world around him. He appears to be somewhere on the autistic spectrum and has to constantly question his own and others reactions to everything- something he does through the medium of letter writing to an unidentified character he calls "friend". This'll sound weird but one of the things I love about this book is the pop culture references- Charlie is constantly discovering new books and music and as it's set in the early 90's there's lots of the Smiths (one of my all time favourite bands) and his favourite books are some of my personal loves too so I really appreciated that element of the storyline. Overall, I liked this book. It touches on some dark topics but because it's from Charlie's perspective it seems relatively innocent when it could have been quite harrowing.

*Harrowing..the word everyone looks for in a book review*

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling

So Mindy Kaling is my new favourite comedian. If you haven't heard of her check out the 'US Office', which she not only acted in but also co-wrote, directed and produced as she is now doing on her own sitcom 'The Mindy Project'. This was a New York Times bestseller and it's easy to see why- she's hilarious. The book follows her childhood and successful career to date through lots of funny anecdotes and generally terrible tongue-in-cheek life advice..a nice short read that had me loudly chuckling away to myself like a lunatic. It's been compared to the likes of Tina Fey's 'Bossypants', another book I loved, so if you enjoyed that then this is probably a good choice for you too.

The Burning Air by Erin Kelly
I reviewed Kelly's first book "The Poison Tree" in Part 1 of my Recently Read and really liked it. Her second novel, "The Burning Air" is an interesting tale of revenge, secrets, lies and general intrigue. There's a nice little plot twist about half way through the book and like her first novel, this relies heavily on the use of flash-back as a plot device. While I liked this at the time I would say it's not hugely memorable..it works well as a thriller and was a good read but I don't know if I'd go out of my way to recommend it, if that makes sense.

The Equality Illusion by Kat Banyard

Described on the cover as "the most influential young feminist of the century", in this book Kat Banyard explores the current perception that women have "never had it so good", a theory which she completely refutes in each chapter, focusing on different aspects of society and women's lives- work, money, sexuality, gender based violence, eating disorders and the rise of pornography. What I really liked about this book is that she interviews real women for their personal experiences of these issues but also backs that up with statistics- an interesting blend of research and anecdotal evidence which the little study nerd in me appreciated. This is definitely worth a read, some of the statistics in it are genuinely shocking and I found myself loudly exclaiming "Oh Dear God" on more than one occasion. This would be of particular benefit for anyone questioning whether or not we still require feminism as a society. (The answer is yes, by the way :)